I have not updated to the latest version (can't afford at the moment) but I would really like to know if there have been any improvements in the DTS sound file handling.

In CS5 you can NOT create a BluRay disk with dts sound. dtshd (using DTS MasterAudioSuite) are not accepted at all and .cpt files are accepted but can only be used for DVD projects (when trying to create a BD project with .cpt you can an error of file not valid for BluRay).

I have not updated to the latest version (can't afford at the moment) but I would really like to know if there have been any improvements in the DTS sound file handling.

Has something changed in newer version?

nope. my colleague updated cs5 over the weekend, and we just ran a couple of tests, and still the same situation with DTS, .cpt and .dts are not "legal for blu-ray" and .dtshd is not a format encore will import.

so i guess write DTS, or keep bugging adobe for this as a suggestion for cs6?

This file although it is accepted comes and with the error that it is not BluRay legal. So it is NOT OK

What did you use to encode the file?

DTS-HD MAS?

If so, did you encode to Blu Ray specs, because when I look at it in streamtools, it verifies correctly but when I put it in the streamplayer, it says

"UNKNOWNFORMAT_dialnorm"

It's also a stereo file, and AFAIK DTS Core Audio in stereo at full bitrate is pointless, as you end up with a data stream the same as the LPCM it started as, but with content thrown away - therefore you must be getting weird stream containers.

1) It was encoded in dvd format because if you choose destination bluray the file comes as dtshd and it is not imported at all in Encore

2) It is a stereo file just simply because it is for testing, doesn't matter if we gain anything or not, it is just testing.

If you study my results you will see that the 754.cpt file is used with no problem for BluRay project building. But the 1509.cpt file is not.

If you check the mediainfo analysis it interprets the 754.cpt file as 755 bitrate and the 1509 as 1510 bitrate (whereas the dts stream tool correctly reports them as 754 and 1509 bitrate respectively).

So it seems that Encore is doing the same thing. If Encore is strict about BluRay specs (max bitrate 1509) it reports it as not legal as it interprets it wrongly as 1510 Kb/s.

Fot the file with 754 (interpreted wrongly as 755 kb/s) there is no problem as it is way before the max bitrate limit.

1) It was encoded in dvd format because if you choose destination bluray the file comes as dtshd and it is not imported at all in Encore

2) It is a stereo file just simply because it is for testing, doesn't matter if we gain anything or not, it is just testing.

If you study my results you will see that the 754.cpt file is used with no problem for BluRay project building. But the 1509.cpt file is not.

If you check the mediainfo analysis it interprets the 754.cpt file as 755 bitrate and the 1509 as 1510 bitrate (whereas the dts stream tool correctly reports them as 754 and 1509 bitrate respectively).

So it seems that Encore is doing the same thing. If Encore is strict about BluRay specs (max bitrate 1509) it reports it as not legal as it interprets it wrongly as 1510 Kb/s.

Fot the file with 754 (interpreted wrongly as 755 kb/s) there is no problem as it is way before the max bitrate limit.

That is my first guess.

I understrand this is for testing, but it's a flawed test as the stereo DTS file is a contradiction in terms.

Just saying, really, that a much better test would be with a 5.1 DTS Core Audio file.

Quite simply, stereo .cpt DTS Core Audio just is not mandatory in the specs, and is most likely unsupported.

I'm just not seeing anything that suggests it is not supported, but every mention of DTS Core Audio is talking about 5.1.

Normally, stereo in DTS Core Audio is just not really done at full bitrate - never once have I seen it.

So the DTS file is out of specs for 1 (one) kb/s. It is shown as 1510 but in reality it is 1509 KB/s which is legal. Actually the dts stream tools verify that it is 1509 Kb/s. The next below encoding bitrate is 754 kb/s which is not sufficient in my opinion for 5.1 sound.

I have an idea. Does anyone know of any method to change the hex header-value in the file to make it report ar 1508?

Or maybe can Ecnore be modified to accept 1510 KB/s bitrate?

Since you see in the picture that the official DTS MAS encoder, outputs the file with these characteristics which is ofcourse legal, can't you make some improvements to Encore to accept it?

I don't know why various windows application report it as 1510 or
more, But the dts streamtool in the DTS MAS after analyzing it give the
correct bitrate of 1509. Maybe you could try and have a chat with DTS systems why this is happening and how could it be fixed in Encore.

Actually, you should have a chat with DTS to find out why the file created by DTS MAS is being seen by 3 different Windows applications as having an illegal bit rate. Whatever's wrong with the file that's causing En to not see the selected bit rate is causing the same issue in other Windows apps; it's obviously a problem with the file.

Funny answer. DTS MAS is the official encoder used by industry leading applications with no problem. The files encoded with DTS MAS are used with no problem in Scenarist and NetBlender (my friend in the studio verified NetBlender). Their encoder and their streamtools application work and report fine.

Even Encore uses them just fine for DVD creation at both 754 & 1509 Kb/s. There is something wrong with the BluRay creation at 1509 Kb/s which I guess is up to Adobe engineer's to find out.

And by the way, if you create a BluRay project with dts 754 kb/s and later with BDfix replace the audio with the supposed illegal 1509-1510 Kb/s the blu ray disc works perfectly.

And again I would like to say that files created with DTS MAS are perfectly legal since it is their own game that we try to play to.

Can I author a Blu-ray Disc with a .cpt file?No. Blu-ray Disc does not support .the cpt file structure. Blu-ray Disc only supports the .dtshd format, which is created with the DTS-HD Master Audio Suite.

What are some authoring systems for Blu-ray Disc that are compatible with DTS-HD?Sonic Scenarist®, Sony Blu-print™, NetBlender DoStudio™

This is a very serious issue btw and needs to be dealt with swiftly, as it renders Encore practically useless for people who deal with primarily HD / Blu-ray content. I've found workarounds for its other bugs and quirks, but this right here is ridiculous. Not only can I not use HD audio (won't even import dtshd files), but the only solution is to cut the bitrate of my already core-quality audio tracks in half. Completely unacceptable.

Since the problem is that dts files at 1509 kb/s are reported as 1510 in windows applications (except dts streamtools which correctly identifies as 1509) my guess would be to try and hex edit the dts file and make it report as 1508 kb/s.

Unless ofcourse Adobe enginneers spend a little time and discuss it with dts labs and i am sure there can be a quick fix or something. Come on, give us at least the happiness of using dts sound in blu ray..

I was thinking (optimistically) that maybe the fix for these windows apps was as easy as changing the windows decoder to something that reported more accurately.

For now, I see two options, potential "before or after hacks" to make this work:

Modify the dts/cpt files to make them look 1509kbps or lower, then import,

Modify the built BDMV folder files from Encore, created with a "dummy" low-bitrate dts file, with a program like bdfix or bdedit.

For the first option, my original thought was to go with DTS-HD MAS, Surcode DVD-DTS, or with free software like eac3to and attempt to encode the files to a slightly lower bitrate, which after a significant amount of time fiddling with each program, I quickly concluded impossible (there are no options to change the bitrate further with dts (non-hd) audio other than the standard 1509/754 with MAS, and the 1536/768 with DVD-DTS, and eac3to won't even recognize commands to encode to anything other than the latter two bitrates.

I then downloaded HxD, a free hex editor, imported a file in, and felt immediately cold and isolated. I quickly closed it, before depression started to sink in.

For the second option, I went to try to BDFix as an earlier poster suggested, but refuse to pay $600-$1000 to fix a problem that should not exist. I then went for BDedit, a free -- albeit with less automated functionality -- tool, opened it, loaded my bdmv.index file, and immediately went cross-eyed. I decided I would try to do on my own with no structure edit, by muxing the proper audio with the video and subs into a custom .M2TS file using TsMuxer, and replace the main film .M2TS in the STREAM directory within the BDMV folder. I then built the ISO (using ImgBurn) and while this did effectively use the new audio, the video now has a horrible seeking issue, where it glitches and takes forever to switch chapters or move the slider to a later scene in the timeline. This more than likely being due to the new audio not matching what the files somewhere in the BDMV folder are expecting.

So, until someone good at hex or BD structure editing steps up with some assistance, or one of us becomes fluent at either, we are at the mercy of Adobe to actually make this product work.

Of course, there is a third option: go with Scenarist. Which I would gladly do at this point, had I not already expended the money, time, and effort of acquiring and learning this buggy software. If this issue isn't fixed soon, I may begrudgingly be forced to do so.

I was thinking (optimistically) that maybe the fix for these windows apps was as easy as changing the windows decoder to something that reported more accurately.

For now, I see two options, potential "before or after hacks" to make this work:

Modify the dts/cpt files to make them look 1509kbps or lower, then import,

Modify the built BDMV folder files from Encore, created with a "dummy" low-bitrate dts file, with a program like bdfix or bdedit.

For the first option, my original thought was to go with DTS-HD MAS, Surcode DVD-DTS, or with free software like eac3to and attempt to encode the files to a slightly lower bitrate, which after a significant amount of time fiddling with each program, I quickly concluded impossible (there are no options to change the bitrate further with dts (non-hd) audio other than the standard 1509/754 with MAS, and the 1536/768 with DVD-DTS, and eac3to won't even recognize commands to encode to anything other than the latter two bitrates.

I then downloaded HxD, a free hex editor, imported a file in, and felt immediately cold and isolated. I quickly closed it, before depression started to sink in.

For the second option, I went to try to BDFix as an earlier poster suggested, but refuse to pay $600-$1000 to fix a problem that should not exist. I then went for BDedit, a free -- albeit with less automated functionality -- tool, opened it, loaded my bdmv.index file, and immediately went cross-eyed. I decided I would try to do on my own with no structure edit, by muxing the proper audio with the video and subs into a custom .M2TS file using TsMuxer, and replace the main film .M2TS in the STREAM directory within the BDMV folder. I then built the ISO (using ImgBurn) and while this did effectively use the new audio, the video now has a horrible seeking issue, where it glitches and takes forever to switch chapters or move the slider to a later scene in the timeline. This more than likely being due to the new audio not matching what the files somewhere in the BDMV folder are expecting.

So, until someone good at hex or BD structure editing steps up with some assistance, or one of us becomes fluent at either, we are at the mercy of Adobe to actually make this product work.

Of course, there is a third option: go with Scenarist. Which I would gladly do at this point, had I not already expended the money, time, and effort of acquiring and learning this buggy software. If this issue isn't fixed soon, I may begrudgingly be forced to do so.

Sorry to sound negative here, but all this strikes me as a complete waste of time as Encore is not actually decoding anything here.

DTS support is passthrough only, unless something has changed in CS5.5 variant that I do not yet know about.

It's the application importer that has the problem, as 1510 reported instead of 1509 on PC notwithstanding, I am having no trouble at all in actual authoring with DTS files (using the .cpt variant) in Scenarist at all. As the 2 apps use the same authorcore, it's got to be the importer and not windows otherwise it would all fall apart in Scenarist too.

FWIW, DVD-Lab Pro gives 1536kbps as the bitrate for imported DTS files, clearly wrong, yet still it gets things right in the actual compile stage.

The coders blame this on the file headers, and say it simply is not an issue to worry about.

Also, editing with stuff like eac3to is not going to work for BD as the verification will doubtless fail more often than not when fed out of spec assets - the creation of which is highly likely in reverse engineered "encoders" as this has to be.

The other reason I think the problem must be in the importer is because of what happens on attempting to import DTS-HD files in high resolution or Master Audio format - it just does not work as Encore's importers get it all wrong & ignore the VBR code, treating it all as CBR with disastrous results.

I cannot understand why mandatory codecs are not implemented - makes no sense to me at all - so I feel your pain here as DTS Core Audio is a mandatory stream for Blu Ray inasmuch as all players must be capable of decoding it, yet it's broken.

Another missing in action codec is 5.1 LPCM too.....maybe the developers do not think audio is important!